An Oil-Soaked Globe as Production Keeps Climbing and Demand Falls

An oil well in Texas owned by Apache Corporation, the object of a failed bid last week from Anadarko Petroleum. Many in the oil industry expect large companies to buy small operators.Credit Spencer Platt/Getty Images

HOUSTON — Such is the state of the oil industry these days that there is sometimes nowhere to put the oil. Off the coast of Texas, a line of roughly 40 tankers has formed, waiting to unload their crude or, in some cases, for a willing buyer to come along. Similar scenes are playing out off the coasts of Singapore and China and in the Persian Gulf.

There is little sign that the logjam will ease, as the price of oil continued its yearlong plunge this week, declining by nearly $10 a barrel.

The renewed collapse in crude prices is helping to again drive down gasoline prices for American drivers, to a national average of $2.19 a gallon for regular gasoline on Friday, according to the AAA motor club. That is 9 cents below the price a month ago and 73 cents below the price a year ago.

The slide in oil companies’ fortunes has been significant because of expanded production in Russia, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states, as well as a slowdown in demand growth in China and the expectation by commodity traders that the Iran nuclear deal will introduce large quantities of oil to the glutted market.

While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land). The storage problems are so severe in fact, that traders asking ships to go slow, and that is where we see something very strange occurring off the coast near Galveston, TX.

FT reports that “the amount of oil at sea is at least double the levels of earlier this year and is equivalent to more than a day of global oil supply. The numbers of vessels has been compiled by the Financial Times from satellite tracking data and industry sources.”

The storage glut is unprecedented:

Off Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, Asia’s main oil hub, around 35m barrels of crude and shipping fuel are being stored on 14 VLCCs.

“A lot of the storage off Singapore is fuel oil as the contango is stronger,” said Petromatrix analyst Olivier Jakob. Fuel oil is mainly used in shipping and power generation.

Off China, which is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest crude importer, five heavily laden VLCCs — each capable of carrying more than 2m barrels of oil — are parked near the ports of Qingdao, Dalian and Tianjin.

In Europe, a number of smaller tankers are facing short-term delays at Rotterdam and in the North Sea, where output is near a two-year high. In the Mediterranean a VLCC has been parked off Malta since September.

An intolerable unimaginable heat forecast for Persian Gulf

By SETH BORENSTEIN

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FILE In this June 10, 2010 file photo, an Asian laborer avoids the direct sun by working behind a wooden sign, as he works on a manhole alongside of an under construction road in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Parts of the Persian Gulf by the end of the century will on occasion will be just too hot for the human body to tolerate, if carbon dioxide emissions continue on current trend, a new study says. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — If carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current pace, by the end of century parts of the Persian Gulf will sometimes be just too hot for the human body to tolerate, a new study says.

How hot? The heat index — which combines heat and humidity — may hit 165 to 170 degrees (74 to 77 Celsius) for at least six hours, according to numerous computer simulations in the new study. That’s so hot that the human body can’t get rid of heat. The elderly and ill are hurt most by current heat waves, but the future is expected to be so hot that healthy, fit people would be endangered, health experts say.

“You can go to a wet sauna and put the temperature up to 35 (Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit) or so. You can bear it for a while, now think of that at an extended exposure” of six or more hours, said study co-author Elfatih Eltahir, an MIT environmental engineering professor.

While humans have been around, Earth has not seen that type of prolonged, oppressive combination of heat and humidity, Eltahir said. But with the unique geography and climate of the Persian Gulf and increased warming projected if heat-trapping gas emissions continue to rise at current rates, it will happen every decade or so by the end of the century, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Ships expected to sail for at least three months

Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time in a bid to send ‘a message’ to the White House.

A destroyer and helicopter-carrying supply shipbegan their voyage last month from the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas and are on a three-month mission.

The voyage is intended to counter the U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf, as the Islamic Republic continues to assert its power across the Middle East and beyond.

‘Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message,’ Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad of Iran’s Northern Navy Fleet said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

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‘This move has a message’: Iranian warships dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean last month will travel close to U.S. maritime borders for the first time in response to U.S. fleets near Iran

Haddad said the vessels have already entered the Atlantic Ocean via waters near South Africa, carrying about 30 navy academy cadets for training along with their regular crews.

Iran had first warned America of its plans to deploy its naval forces along U.S. marine borders ‘in the next few years’ in September 2012.

Iran’s Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari at the time said that the move would be a response to U.S. naval deployments near its own coastlines.

The U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet is based in Bahrain, just across the Persian Gulf.

Islamic charity officials gave millions to al-Qaeda, U.S. says

When Qatar’s royal family was looking for advice on charitable giving, it turned to a well-regarded professor named Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi. The 59-year-old educator had a stellar résumé that included extensive fundraising experience and years of work with international human rights groups.

But one apparent accomplishment was omitted from the list: According to U.S. officials, Nu’aymi also was working secretly as a financier for al-Qaeda, funneling millions of dollars to the terrorist group’s affiliates in Syria and Iraq even as he led campaigns in Europe for greater freedoms for Muslims.

Nu’aymi was one of two men identified by Treasury Department officials last week as major financial backers of al-Qaeda and its regional chapters across the Middle East. Although U.S. officials routinely announce steps to disrupt terrorist financing networks, the individuals named in the latest case are far from ordinary. Both men have served as advisers to government-backed foundations in Qatar and have held high-profile positions with international human rights groups. The second man, a Yemeni, is heavily involved in his country’s U.S.-backed political transition.

Their alleged dual roles — promoting humanitarian causes and civil rights while simultaneously supporting extremist groups — reflect a growing challenge for counterterrorism officials attempting to monitor the torrents of cash flowing to Islamist rebel groups in Syria, current and former U.S. officials say.

“Individuals with one foot in the legitimate world and another in the realm of terrorist financing provide al-Qaeda with a cloak of legitimacy,” said Juan Zarate, a former Treasury Department official and author of “Treasury’s Wars,” a book that describes U.S. efforts to penetrate terrorist financial networks. Zarate said such cases greatly complicate the “financial diplomacy” involved in attempting to disrupt terrorist support networks, especially private funding from wealthy Persian Gulf donors seeking to help Syria’s rebels.

Despite attempts by gulf states to crack down on jihadist financial networks, former and current U.S. officials have described a surge in private support for Islamist extremists in Syria, particularly in Qatar and Kuwait.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jeff Steinberg, senior editor with the Executive Intelligence Review in Washington, about the issue of the US and a group of 41 other nations’ military drills off Bahrain in the Persian Gulf focusing on the protection of global shipping.

A nuclear reactor located near a magnitude-6.3 earthquake that struck Iran today (April 9) is working normally, news sources say.

Three people died in a quake whose epicenter was about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southeast of the Bushehr nuclear plant in southwest Iran, the BBC reported. The earthquake was followed by a series of aftershocks, the largest of which was magnitude 5.4.

However, Fereydoon Hasanvand, the governor of Bushehr province, told Iranian state TV that “No damage at all has been caused.”

An official from the Russian firm that built the plant, Atomstroyexport, also said the plant’s operation wasn’t affected by the quake.

“Personnel continue to work in the normal regime, and radiation levels are fully within the norm,” the official told the Russian state news agency Ria.

A magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck near Iran’s only nuclear power station Tuesday, killing 20 people and injuring 500, according to one report, and generating tremors that were felt on the other side of the Persian Gulf.

The quake struck about 60 miles southeast of the city of Bushehr on Iran’s south coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Initial reports suggested the city’s nuclear plant had not been affected, but the southern province where the quake struck is vast and remote and details were not immediately clear.

IRNA said Iran’s Red Crescent Society had sent five assessment teams to the area to coordinate rescue operations, and that helicopters from Fars and Khuzestan provinces were airlifting supplies required by rescue teams.

One Bushehr resident told Reuters by telephone that her home and her neighbors’ homes shook but were not damaged.

“We could clearly feel the earthquake,” said Nikoo, who asked to be identified only by her first name. “The windows and chandeliers all shook.”

Explosion

Several people were wounded Sunday in an explosion in Bandar Imam Khomeini, a port city in Iran, but few details have been released. The city is located some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southwest of Tehran, in the oil-rich Khuzestan province. Members of Iran’s Arabic-speaking minority have occasionally held demonstrations in recent years in the area, demanding more rights. The Arvand and Ghadir Petrochemical Companies are both located at the port, which is northeast of Kuwait City, and on the banks of the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf. Several cars were damaged and windows in nearby buildings were shattered, including those at a hotel, according to the report late Saturday by the semi-official Iranian news agency ILNA. There were no details offered about the cause of the blast.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian semi-official news agency is reporting that an explosion has injured several people in a port in the south of the country.

The late Saturday report by ILNA did not specify the cause of the blast. It says it also damaged several cars and shattered windows of nearby buildings including a hotel in Imam Khomeini port, some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southwest of Tehran.

The port, one of Iran’s major import and export terminals, is located in oil-rich Khuzestan province, the scene of occasional protests in recent years by members of Iran’s Arabic-speaking minority seeking more rights.

Iran in the past has blamed explosions in the province on saboteurs tied to Arab and Western intelligence agencies.

A view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran (file photo)

Sat Feb 23, 2013 11:41AM GMT

Following months of efforts, 16 new sites for nuclear power plants have been designated in coastal areas of the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, [southwestern province of] Khuzestan and northwestern part of the country.”

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI)

The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announces that the Islamic Republic has designated 16 nuclear power sites.

“Following months of efforts, 16 new sites for nuclear power plants have been designated in coastal areas of the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, [southwestern province of] Khuzestan and northwestern part of the country,” the AEOI said on Saturday.

TEHRAN, Dec. 25 (MNA) – Bahraini Foreign Minister has recently insulted Iranian people with a discourse governing the Al Khalifa regime officials far from diplomatic norms and conventions.Separation of Bahrain in 1971 brings the question to the fore that what international legal bases allowed British colonial power to separate Bahrain from motherland Iran.

According to official map registered by UN headquarters, Bahrain was an integral part of mainland Iran. At that time unfortunately, Iran’s weak and failed monarch distanced from the public and accepted Bahrain’s independence and separation to save his crown, making a large scar on hearts of Iranians forever.

At that time in 1970, British government arranged the scene in order to separate Bahrain, then 14th province of Iran. The colonialist Britain, disturbed by the spread of Shiism in southern coasts of the Persian Gulf, devised the great conspiracy of separation of Bahrain from its motherland, Iran. Then, the British government installed Bedouins and desert-dwellers from Al Khalifa tribe on Bahrain as governors, with the aid from Saudi influence.

A 15-per cent minority, later to form Al Khalifa regime, immigrated Bahrain to change its demographic features, and to bring about gradual decrease in Bahrain’s original settlers.

The original settlers were not allowed to properly give their voices to the referendum held illegally by the British government.

The majority of those participants in the referendum received money from the Britain and came from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.

U Thant, then the UN Secretary General, voiced his objection to the British excessive intervention in Bahrain internal affairs, but he was intimidated by UK and US.

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